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As our publisher Andrew Rasiej told ace political reporter Josh Richman of the San Jose Mercury News recently: "If the tech story of the 2008 election was social media, the tech story of 2012 is Big Data."

So the time was ripe for an inevitable YouTube parody. Simon Ganz, a 27-year-old writer working as an assistant to several comedians in Hollywood, delivered the goods in an eerily spot on three-minute sketch uploaded on Sunday (watch it below.)

What makes it so germane is that it hits on many, if not all, of the key tech themes that have powered the marketing of the candidates this election cycle -- the increasing use of cross-referencing databases, which can make voters feel spied-upon, personalization of messaging, and the persistance of that messaging.

"I don't know if you've ever been on the Obama e-mail list, but it is constant begging," Ganz said in a phone conversation, laughing. "Jon Stewart, when Obama was on, made fun of him for it. Every day, there's an e-mail from someone different, either Michelle [Obama], or [David] Axelrod, or someone talking about very specific amounts, like they need $68 from me."

Ganz said that he and his co-conspirators were inspired to make the video after receiving a bunch of robocalls. In his own specific case, a robocall with the recorded voice of Bill Clinton moved Ganz to write the parody. He was struck by the contrast between Clinton's ability to sound emotional and appealing, and the delivery of that kind of recorded appeal through the relatively "soulless" method of robocalling.

News Briefs

Hillary Clinton's deleted emails might not be as gone as she thinks; people making decisions about encryption know nothing about encryption; Meerkat is dead (already); finding out that Facebook filters the newsfeed is, to some like waking up in the Matrix; and much, much more. GO

Get to know Clinton's digital team even better; Ted Cruz election announcement-related fundraising offers peak into the coming data-driven campaign arms race; New York City launches online community engagement pilot program called IdeaScale; and much, much more. GO